(seafood.vasep.com.vn) According to the ITC, in 2012, Saudi Arabia imported only 192 MT of frozen pangasius (HS 030324) with the value of about US$365,000. After five years, Vietnam’s pangasius exports to Saudi Arabia showed the 57-time increase in volume to hit nearly 11 thousand MT and 49-time rise in value to touch US$17.7 million.

In 2016, Saudi Arabia stayed as the 8th largest buyer of Vietnam pangasius with the value of US$51.3 million, accounting for 3% of Vietnam’s total pangasius exports. In the first three months of 2017, Vietnam’s pangasius exports to this market reached US$12.3 million, up 13.8% over the same period last year and accounted for 3.3%. With this proportion, Saudi Arabia continues to be a potential importing market of Vietnam pangasius in the West Asia.

According to ITC statistics, the growth rate of pangasius imports into Saudi Arabia was quite good, in spite of a drop two years ago. In 2016, imports of pangasius took up the largest share of catfish imports into Saudi, followed by tilapia meat (HS code 030493); frozen tilapia (HS code 030323), fresh/chilled tilapia (HS code 030271). In addition, this market also imports some other whitefish products such as fresh/chilled hake (HS code 030254), frozen cod (HS code 030363), and Alaska pollock meat (HS code 030494).

In 2016, Vietnam was the biggest supplier of whitefish to Saudi Arabia, accounting for 43% of the total imports, followed by Myanmar, Egypt, Taiwan, Bangladesh and Thailand. Besides pangasius and tilapia from Vietnam, Saudi Arabia also imports frozen pangasius (HS code 030324), tilapia (HS code 030461) from Myanmar; frozen tilapia (HS code 030323) from Thailand, fresh/chilled tilapia (HS code 030271) from Egypt. However, in 2016, the import price of pangasius into Saudi Arabia decreased by US$1.65-US$1.8 per kg in 2015 to US$1.45-US$1.5 USD per kg.

In QI/2017, difficulties in some main importing markets such as the U.S, the EU made Vietnam’s pangasius exporters shift to the Americas, Asia, including Saudi Arabia.